CINCINNATI — If Marvin Lewis held his cards any closer to his chest, a surgeon would have to cut them out.

The Cincinnati Bengals coach isn’t into debating, analyzing or forecasting much of anything in regard to his team’s AFC wild-card playoff game on Saturday at Houston, which is a rematch of last year’s first-round postseason game, won 31-10 by the Texans.

Of course, coaching paranoia is ingrained in the NFL culture, especially when the postseason rolls around and fans and media obsess for days over every detail.

So it’s not surprising that Lewis didn’t take the bait suggesting that the wild-card Bengals (10-6), despite being an underdog going into Houston, are actually playing better football of late than the AFC South champion Texans (12-4).

The Bengals have won three consecutive games and seven of their past eight, earning a playoff spot on Dec. 23 with a 13-10 win at AFC North nemesis Pittsburgh and following up with a 23-17 home win on Sunday over the division champion Baltimore Ravens.

Unlike surging Cincinnati, which had an undefeated December for the first time in team history, the Texans are grinding their gears after once being 11-1. Houston lost three of its last four, including a 28-16 regular-season finale loss at Indianapolis.

Sunday’s loss cost the Texans a first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

“Momentum finished (on Sunday),” said Lewis, who is 0-3 in the postseason. “It’s what you do now that counts. You get no points for what you did at the end of the season.”

A week ago, however, the reticent Bengals coach provided a rare hint that he feels a lot better about this team, the AFC’s No. 6 seed, than the 9-7 club he took to Houston a year ago.

“It’s a little different feel,” he said. “I think we’re a different team. I think we’re different than we were last year going into the playoffs. We were bailing wire together a little bit in some spots.”

The Bengals surprisingly made the playoffs last year behind the dynamic rookie duo of quarterback Andy Dalton and receiver A.J. Green. Yet they stumbled into Houston fresh off a 24-16 home loss to Baltimore.

After a 6-2 start in 2011, Cincinnati lost five of its last eight regular-season games. It took losses by the Denver Broncos and New York Jets on the season’s final day to give the Bengals the last AFC playoff spot.

“Last year, we had to have a lot of other things happen for us to get to the playoffs,” Dalton said. “This year, we controlled our own destiny and we were able to get in on our own. I think that’s a big difference in this team, and I think the experience of last year is going to help us.”

The Bengals left Houston a year ago with psyches battered by a three-touchdown defeat that featured the Texans scoring 24 consecutive points. Hitchcock directed Cincinnati’s game film at boisterous Reliant Stadium.

Lewis used both replay challenges — and lost both — in the first half. Bengals safety Chris Crocker dropped an interception that he could have returned for a game-tying touchdown in the third quarter. Houston’s Arian Foster finished with 153 rushing yards and two TDs. Dalton threw three interceptions.

The game turned late in the first half when Houston scored 10 points in 56 seconds, an outburst concluded by defensive lineman J.J. Watt swatting a Dalton pass at the line of scrimmage, intercepting the ball and returning it 29 yards for a TD.

“Our guys remember,” said Lewis, the only Bengals coach to have three double-digit win seasons. “That’s why they fought the way they’ve fought through the season. That (loss) has been there since the start of the season. You’re not going to squeeze any more blood out of that turnip.”

Cincinnati stood 3-5 on Nov. 4 after four consecutive losses. But led by a defense that ended the regular season with a team-record 51 sacks, the Bengals finished strong.